DOH-ARMM prioritizes poor in drive on 5 health care programs

Cotabato City (08 June 2015) – The Department of Health of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DOH-ARMM) continues to intensify its region-wide campaign on five critical health care programs with the poor as priority, an official said today.Kadil Sinolinding, ARMM’s Secretary of Health, said the department will conduct a series of high-impact strategies that would “improve health outcomes” prioritizing pre-identified poor population in the region.During Monday’s High Impact Five (HI-5) Health Summit at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex in this city, Sec. Sinolinding said the department will focus on five critical universal health care (UHC) interventions.

“UHC HI-5 is a strategy that focuses on five critical universal health care interventions such as prioritizing the poor, providing tangible outputs, which are felt within a breakthrough period of 15 months through synchronized implementation of activities,” Sec. Sinolinding said.

The five critical UHC programs focus on the following: reduction of maternal deaths; improved infant health and reduced infant deaths; improved health of children under five years old; combat human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and malaria, as well as other diseases; and implement a service delivery network in all areas of the region.

The poor segment of the population in the region identified by the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction and other poverty program areas such as Accelerated & Sustainable Anti-Poverty Program as well as provinces with high poverty magnitude, high poverty incidence and provinces vulnerable to disasters will be given top priority.

Twenty-eight municipalities in the region’s five provinces – Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi – will be the beneficiaries of more than P50 million worth of programs under a Bottom-Up Budgeting approach.

DOH-ARMM has recorded 71 maternal mortalities in every 100,000 live births in 2014, up by 20 compared with 2013’s record of 51 maternal mortalities. In 2014, ARMM recorded 10.43 mortalities among children under-five years old for every 1,000 live births, up from 5.42 in 2013.

In the first quarter of 2015, DOH-ARMM reported 17 cases of HIV/AIDS in the region with two cases recorded within the quarter. Data from the DOH central office showed that for this year, 21 such cases are recorded on a daily basis. From 2009 to the first quarter of 2015, there are already 15,760 cases of malaria in the region, 39 were reported this year.

Sec. Sinolinding said, through the pipeline strategies of the Health department, his office will seek to address these issues. He added these activities’ objective is to “bring in better health services to every family in the region, down to the barangay level.”

Nemesio Gako, DOH central office undersecretary and Enrique Tayag, DOH central office director for policy and health system, graced the summit. The event convened governors, mayors, local government units’ committees on health, members of the Regional Legislative Assembly, provincial, city and municipal health officers, chiefs of hospitals, Islamic scholars, regional line agencies and health development partners, among others. (Bureau of Public Information)

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